Baihanluo Catholic Church is the remotest Christian Church on earth. The isolated village is in a roadless region high on a Himalayan mountain ridge deep in “The Great River Trenches of Asia” – one of our planet’s most dramatic geological features where four major rivers – the Irrawaddy, Salween, Mekong, and Yangtze all spill off the Tibetan Plateau coursing south in tight parallel for 100 miles.

In the late 1800’s, French Catholic missionaries made their way far, far up the Mekong from the French colony of Laos to befriend the Nu and Lisu tribespeople up here. They responded by building this beautiful wooden church that has been lovingly cared for by the local parishioners ever since.

I led an expedition traversing all three of the great trenches twenty years ago (2001). We were welcomed so warmly by the devout villagers. It’s hard to get more remote than this, yet they have retained their faith for at least four generations now. You can imagine how powerful and experience it was to be with them. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #138 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Lanzarote, Canary Islands. How, you may ask, did the most famous knight of King Arthur’s Round Table, Sir Lancelot du Lac, end up in the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco? Well, he didn’t. It was an Italian explorer named after him, Lancelotto Malocello, who became the first European to reach this island in 1336, where he lived for 20 years.

Lancelotto called himself Lanzarote (lan-zah-roh-tay), and map-makers used it. The island along with the rest of the Canaries was colonized by Spain throughout the 1400s, and prospered with its volcanic soil. Until, that is, massive volcanic eruptions in the 1730s with over 30 major new volcanoes and over 100 small cinder cones flooded hundreds of square kilometers with lava.

The island became a mostly useless wasteland until a Lazarotean artistic genius named Cesar Manrique (1919-1992) transformed the lava fields into a surrealistic wonderland. The photo above is one of his many creations, the home Cesar designed and built on a lava cliff for actor Omar Sharif.

Today, visitors flock to Lanzarote to marvel at Manrique’s masterpieces scattered over the island, gape at the volcanic moonscape of Timanfaya, and to wine, dine, and luxuriate at gorgeous beach resorts. Come to the Island of Lancelot for an experience like nowhere else, one you’ll never forget. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #284 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

In the remotest center of the Sahara Desert lies an unknown, unexcavated mysterious lost city known as Djado. No one knows who built it or when. Lying on the ancient Roman trade route from the Saharan salt mines of Fachi and Bilma to the Mediterranean, the Djado oasis flourished for a thousand years (the 1st Millennium AD), but has been forgotten and abandoned for many centuries.

The only people who live near Djado in the vast desert wasteland where Algeria, Libya, Chad, and Niger come together, are the wandering Toubu nomads with no permanent settlements. It is an indescribable experience to explore such a wondrous lost city right out of an Indiana Jones movie that you have all to yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #17, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Dalat, South Viet Nam, 1961. I was 17 years old. A friend of my father’s, Herb Klein, came by our house. He was a prominent businessman whose passion was big-game hunting. He had just returned from the mountain jungle highlands of South Viet Nam and regaled us with stories of the Montagnard tribespeople who were plagued by tigers with a taste for human flesh. He told me that after climbing the Matterhorn, living with Amazon headhunters, and swimming the Hellespont, hunting a man-eating tiger should be my next adventure.

“You’d be saving so many lives, Jack,” he told me. “There’s one I heard about from the Co Ho Montagnards that’s killed and eaten almost 20 of them in the forests outside the town of Dalat. I know who can guide you, he was mine, his name is Ngo Van Chi.”

Somehow, I talked my parents into letting me do this. I had saved up the money from giving tennis and judo lessons. So there I was, in pitch dark in a “mirador” of branches and leaves, holding a .300 Weatherby with a flashlight wired to the barrel, waiting for this man-eating tiger to come for the rotting water buffalo we set out as bait. Chi and I heard the tiger, I put the rifle barrel out, Chi clicked on the flashlight, I saw these two enormous red eyes, and fired.

And there he is, the Man-Eater of Dalat, who would never kill another human being ever again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #175 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Mulafassur waterfall below the village of Gasadalur is only one example of the serenity of the Faroe Islands. They’re a self-governing Danish possession in the North Atlantic halfway between Norway and Iceland. You won’t find a place of more captivating serene and peaceful charm.

Warmed by the Gulf Stream, in the summer it’s so strewn with wildflowers the roads are known as “buttercup highways.” At every turn along them you’re stunned by the incredible scenery. The capital of Torshavn is so laid back the Prime Minister’s Office – the Løgmansskristovan – is a wood cabin with a green grass sod roof. Great beer from the Faroes’ two breweries is always flowing in the pubs, where the Faroese islanders welcome you like an old friend.

You can easily fly here from Edinburgh, London, Copenhagen, or Reykjavik, Iceland . A few days here will do wonders for your soul. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #18 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Live on a private houseboat exploring the jungles of Borneo by river and families of Orang Utans will be your neighbors.

To get here, you fly from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta to a small town in southern Borneo, Pangkalan Bun, on the Sekonyer River. You hire your own houseboat called a klotok (shower, nice bed, good warm food and cold beer) and English-speaking guide to take you up river through the jungles of the Tanjung Putting Orang Utan reserve. You’ll see proboscis monkeys, hornbills – and more wild orang utans than any other place on earth.

Spend time among them and you’ll understand how smart and human-like these gentle giants are. It’s an endearing experience never to be forgotten. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #72 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

We’re all familiar with the miracle of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead four days after his entombment in John 11:1-44. But what happened to Lazarus afterwards – what did he do with the rest of his (second) life?

He left Judea to live on the island of Cyprus. There he met Paul the Apostle and his evangelizing partner Barnabas who was a Cypriot. They appointed him the first Bishop of Kition (present day Lanarca), where he lived for another 30 years, then upon his second death was buried for the last time.

A church was built over his marble sarcophagus which has undergone many resurrections itself over the last two millennia. But here it stands today after all those ravages of time, Agios Lazaros, the Church of St. Lazarus, over his still-preserved sarcophagus. On every Lazarus Saturday (eight says before Easter), an icon of St. Lazarus is taken in procession through the streets of Lanarca. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #165 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

On top of Temple Mount in Jerusalem stands one of the world holiest building on earth revered by millions – and as such is one of the world’s greatest examples of cultural appropriation.

The Rock around which it is built is the Foundation Stone, limestone bedrock which the ancient Israelites worshipped as the origin point of creation, the location of Abraham's binding of Isaac per Genesis 22:2-14, and the base for the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple and its Second Temple successor, which the Romans destroyed in 70 AD.

All of this tradition was appropriated in 691 AD by Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, who built the octagonal structure you see enshrining the Jewish Foundation Stone as Islam’s, claiming it to be the site where Mohammed ascended to Heaven during his Night Journey. Which is why no infidel non-Muslim is allowed entrance to see The Rock. You can, however, see a photo of the Foundation Stone here. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #312 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

June 15, 1961. It was quite a shock to me when I was the surprise guest on Ralph Edwards’ famous television show. My “Life” at age 17? How could that be? The show’s producers were intrigued by a recent Life Magazine story of my swimming the Hellespont as did Leander in Greek mythology (December 12, 1960 issue) that also had photos of me on top of the Matterhorn and with a Jivaro headhunter.

Without my knowing, they flew my guide for the Hellespont swim, Huseyin Uluarslan, from Turkey to LA, the same for my guide on the Matterhorn, Alfons Franzen, from Switzerland, to be on the show. Most amazing of all, they got the Chief Prefect of Police for Ecuador, Jaime Duran, to pick up Tangamashi (the Jivaro who adopted me) and his brother Naita by helicopter from their Amazon encampment, then fly them from Quito to LA.

I was dumbfounded. So there we are in the photo, left to right: Ralph Edwards, Jaime Duran, Tangamashi, Naita, a very young yours truly, and Ralph Ferguson, son of medical researcher Dr. Wilburn Ferguson who translated for Tangamashi. Quite a moment for a 17 year-old boy – and no doubt for Tangamashi! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #10)

Many consider this the most surrealistic place on earth. The clarity of the air turns the sky deep cobalt blue, the dunes are so old they’ve rusted red, combining with the white clay floor to give the skeletal trees a scene out of a Dali painting or a science fiction movie. But it’s real.

A thousand years ago the river watering these trees dried up, leaving a white clay pan amidst red sand dunes almost as tall as the Empire State Building. It’s so dry here these acacia trees can’t decompose, their skeletons standing scorched in the sun for ten centuries.

Dead Vlei is in a region of enormous dunes called Sossusvlei. It’s a mind-boggling experience to float over Sossusvlei in a hot air balloon. Namibia, in fact, is full of such experiences – the largest fur seal colony anywhere at Cape Cross, the marvelous abundance of African wildlife at the Etosha Pan, the dramatic shipwrecks dotting the Skeleton Coast, traditional people living untouched by the modern world like the Himbas.

Plus it’s one of the safest and best-run countries in all Africa – certainly worth consideration for your bucket list. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #47 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Santo Antão island, Cape Verde. The world’s best moonshine, which the islanders call grogue, is made here. There are ten islands comprising the country of Cape Verde, some 400 miles off the West African coast of Senegal in the Atlantic Ocean. For hundreds of years, Cape Verdeans have been making grogue but the folks like the fellow here on Santo Antão have perfected it.

You’ll find their stills out in the sugar cane fields, where they put the cane in to a press called a trapiche, then cook down the molasses in an old oil drum into a clear distilled rum that’s up to 140 proof or more. This fellow is pouring me a sample to taste in a coconut shell. You have to be really careful because it’s so smooth and silky it goes down like water – making it very easy to get quickly wasted.

If you like it – which of course you will – he’ll pour fresh grogue into an empty plastic liter water bottle and sell it to you for six bucks. People are always partying in Cape Verde, and why not with all this grogue. They don’t mix it with anything except some lime juice and an ice cube. Really fantastic. Come to Cape Verde and have great time yourself! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #171 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Curonian Spit is a 60 mile-long and skinny stretch of sand separating the 625 square-mile Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. It is jointly shared by Lithuania and Kaliningrad. The trees of one section of the pine forests covering the spit are weirdly twisted and distorted by some unknown force of nature. Their bizarre undulations have earned it the sobriquet, “The Dancing Forest.” It’s one of the as-yet unexplained mysteries of life on our planet, and a wondrous one to see. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #200 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The School of Athens by Raphael (1483-1520) is one of the greatest artistic masterpieces of the Renaissance. Here you see the two principal figures, Plato on the left and Aristotle on the right. It is a classic example of the picture worth a thousand words.

Plato is pointing to the heavens and his imaginary world of Forms that didn’t actually exist, while Aristotle has his outstretched hand towards the earth – cautioning Plato to pay attention to Reality. For only in the real world can Plato’s ideals of Truth, Justice, and Virtue actually exist, expressed in concrete human action.

Raphael’s masterpiece was commissioned by Pope Julius II for a room in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican – just as Julius commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Apostolic Palace’s Sistine Chapel at the same time! Raphael from 1509-1511, Michelangelo from 1508-1512.

While the Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the Pope, the part of it containing these masterpieces can be open to the public. It is one thing to see a photo of them, and quite another to contemplate them in person. Only then can you be appropriately overwhelmed by the superhuman genius it took to create them. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #257 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The holiest place in Christianity is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Old Jerusalem, built by Constantine in 435 over the site of Christ’s crucifixion on the hill of Golgotha. Upon entering, you immediately see displayed the Stone of Anointing, a slab of limestone traditionally revered as where Jesus’ body was laid after taken down from the Cross, and prepared for burial by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.

Christian pilgrims come from all over the world to place their hands on the stone, pray in devotion, and place personal objects on it for sanctification. The Stone is one of the most sacred objects on Earth to them and with very good reason.

To say that being here to witness this at the Stone of Anointing is a profound experience is a vast understatement. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #311 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The exact spot where Jesus was born is marked by this 14-pointed silver star with the Latin inscription Hic De Virgine Maria Jesus Christus Natus Est- "Here Jesus Christ was born to the Virgin Mary."

This is in a cave known as The Grotto of Nativity, enshrining the traditional site of the manger in Bethlehem, over which the Church of the Nativity was built, originally by Constantine the Great after his mother St. Helena visited the Holy Land and confirmed the site in 326.

It is only appropriate to commemorate what happened here over 2,000 years ago on Christmas Day. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #107 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Jamestown on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic is two blocks wide and a mile long in a narrow deep ravine. One of the world’s longest straight staircases, Jacob’s Ladder, was an original way to get out – 699 steps each 11 inches high – and it’s a workout.

People who live here call themselves “Saints” and pronounce their island “sent-uhl-LEEN-ah.” It’s famous of course for where the Brits exiled Napoleon after Waterloo. His residence and gardens on a high promontory, Longwood House, is preserved with original furnishings and his death bed. Dying in 1821, he was buried in a beautiful peaceful glen nearby (in 1840 he was reinterred at Les Invalides in Paris).

After climbing the Ladder and visiting Longwood, you’d want to refresh yourself at one of Jamestown’s pubs, where local Saints will be happy to hoist a pint with you. And don’t pass up a visit to the Saint Helena Distillery, the world’s remotest distillery, to learn how Head Distiller Paul Hickling makes his memorable Prickly Pear Whiskey, White Lion Spiced Rum, and Jamestown Gin – all in unique stepping stone bottles in honor of Jacob’s Ladder. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #46 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

On January 11, 1755, Alexander Hamilton was born in this home on the island of Nevis, part of the British Leeward Islands Colony in the Caribbean. It was his mother Rachel’s home inherited from her father – she and Alexander’s father, James Hamilton from Scotland, were never married. It was a scandal back then to be “born out of wedlock,” over which young Alexander triumphed.

His birthplace is hallowed as a museum with displays and photos describing his extraordinary path from a penniless orphan (James abandoned him, then Rachel died) to being one of America’s principal Founding Fathers. It leaves quite an impact on you, being in the very place where the history described actually began.

Nevis (nee-viss) is an especially beautiful Caribbean island yet less visited than it’s well-known neighbor, St. Kitts. Together, they form the sovereign nation of St. Kitts & Nevis. If it’s ever your good fortune to get to St. Kitts – make sure to take the short ferry ride over to Nevis. It has a history, beauty and charm all its own. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #283 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

On a hilltop in the grasslands of Mongolia east of the capital of Ulaanbataar stands the world’s largest equestrian statue. It is of the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan (1162-1227), revered by the Mongol people to this day. He sits astride his horse, both of stainless steel reaching 130ft in height. There is a viewing platform on the horse’s back where I took this picture.

It is a sight you can’t pass up when here. Exploring Mongolia, however, is far more than what you see. It’s what you feel so profoundly -- which you can only understand by experiencing it directly in the Mongolian vastness.

We were here last June and we’ll be here again next June. Perhaps you’ll be with us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #310 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

August 1977. High in the mountains above the source of the April River, a tributary of the Sepik in Papua New Guinea, I had a First Contact with an undiscovered tribe calling themselves the Wali-ali-fo. They ate “man long pig,” cooked human meat and lived in thatch dwelling built up in trees. Here I am in one with my Sepik guide Peter who got me here.

Peter translated a description of their practice: “When a man dies, we take a pig to his wife and exchange it for the body of the man. We take the body out into the forest and…cook ‘im eat ‘im. We do this so the man will continue to live in the bodies of his friends.”

Not something we’ll do but something we can understand, yes? These are people we could laugh and joke with, tell stories with, enjoy being with. A very different culture, but human all the same. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #148 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is Durnstein Castle, perched on a precipice high above the Danube River in Austria some 60 miles upriver from Vienna. Built in the early 1100s, here is where King of England Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned, having been captured by his enemy Leopold V of Austria on his return from the Third Crusade in the Holy Land.

The story is well known of how Richard’s brother John had usurped the throne and impeded paying Richard’s ransom – and the legend of Robin Hood raising the money pilfering it from thieving nobles. The ransom was finally paid in 1194, with Richard returning to be crowned King of England once again. The castle fell into disrepair, uninhabitable since the late 1600s. It is an eerie journey back into history to explore it today. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #197 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan with over two million people. Originally named Alma Ata or Father of Apples, as here in the western foothills of the Tien Shan mountains is where apples were first domesticated and cultivated.

Almaty is a thriving prosperous city as the financial/economic- but not political- capital of independent Kazakhstan. And but a stone’s throw away from the magnificent snow-clad Tien Shan, a trekker’s paradise in the spring, summer, and fall, a skier’s in the winter. It’s a modern, spotlessly clean city with gorgeous parks and flower gardens- and there’s a terrific Irish Pub flowing with Guinness.

What more could you want? (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #220 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Waitangi Bay, Chatham Island. 530 miles east of New Zealand lies an isolated island of windswept rugged beauty that few people have ever heard of. Yet Chatham Island may be an ultimate Christian example of how to prevail over monstrous evil.

In the early 1400s, a Polynesian people calling themselves Moriori sailed from New Zealand across an unknown empty sea to reach an island they named Rekohu, meaning “misty sky.” For 400 years they lived in peace among themselves – and in utter isolation from the world.

But in 1835, another people arrived, and brought Hell with them. They were a group of 500 Maori cannibals from New Zealand determined to take Rekohu for themselves. The Maori killed them like sheep, men, women, children, and babies, and ate them.

The British Governor of New Zealand ignored the Maori Genocide. There were about 2,000 Moriori on Rekohu (renamed Chatham) when the Maoris arrived in 1835. Only 101 Moriori were still alive by 1862. It was Western Christian missionaries who put an end to Maori killing, eating, and enslaving Moriori.

Today on Chatham Island there is a Moriori resurgence – but without rancor. The past is past, they say, what counts is the future. Like few other peoples on earth, the Moriori understand the Christian power of abandoning resentment and grievance.

Come to Chatham to experience a unique place in our world, and a people with their souls at peace. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #176 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Italy’s Siena Cathedral, built from 1215 to 1263 is one of the great masterpieces of medieval architecture. It contains works of art by Renaissance greats from Donatello, Bernini, and Michelangelo. Most stunning of all, however, is the cathedral floor, entirely covered with marble mosaics depicting scenes from the Old Testament, Greek and Roman myths and history. No one photo does it justice, it’s so immense. Here you see Crates of Thebes (265-285 BC) atop the Mount of Wisdom casting riches into the sea for a life of tranquil simplicity.

The floor is covered over for most of the year and is only unveiled during (plus a few days before and after) September. So plan to be there then to witness a truly magnificent artistic creation of Western Civilization. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #282 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Okay, one more photo, this of a small portion of the floor to help grasp the staggering immensity and artistry – from the Siena Cathedral website:

Yes, believe it or not, this was a 4 page story in LIFE Magazine more than sixty years ago when I first swam the Hellespont. I repeated the swim twelve years later for my book, The Adventurer’s Guide. You can see the whole LIFE story here. Quite an adventure for a 16 year-old kid. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #121 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

When gold was discovered in the Klondike of Canada’s Yukon in 1896, the fastest way to get there was a tiny hamlet at the end of a long inlet of Alaska’s Inland Passage coast called Skagway. By 1898, Skagway was a lawless Wild West boom town flooded with prospectors who needed entertainment and release from the arduous travails of gold searching – and ladies who would provide it for a price.

The Brass Pic (as in a miner’s pic & shovel) was one of many Houses of Negotiable Affection in Skagway that flourished until the gold panned out in 1900. It’s preserved as a museum today in fond memory of those days of commercially consensual delight. Skagway is a terrific place to experience, drawing over a million visitors a year. Come here to see what draws them. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #198 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Quick – name the only country in the world named after a woman. It’s the island nation in the Caribbean of St. Lucia, named after the patron saint of virgins, 4th century Saint Lucia.

The charm, beauty, and serenity of St. Lucia are unequaled in the Caribbean. Here you can have your own private retreat overlooking the twin peaks of The Pitons. The St. Lucian people take great pride in the immaculate spotlessness of their island and in their matchless reputation for personal warmth and hospitality.

While an English-speaking country and member of the British Commonwealth, there is a French tradition here as well, reflected in the fine cuisine and wines in restaurants. Yet I became fond of the local Piton beer as well. St. Lucia is the easiest island in the Caribbean to fall in love with – so it is no wonder that couples come from all over the world to get married or honeymoon here.

If you want to spend a few days of bliss away from all the cares of the world, you can’t do better than this place of heaven in the Caribbean. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #190 photo ©Jack Wheeler)